Having watched Virat Kohli’s on-field exploits with awe all these years, it was a surreal feeling for Mukesh Kumar when the former Indian captain rushed to hug him after the pacer got his maiden Test wicket.

Making his Test debut a few months before his 30th birthday, the man from Bihar’s Gopalganj is a late bloomer and has had to come up the ranks proving his mettle right from Bengal U-23 to India ‘A’ in the last seven years.